By Jim Stanford on March 6, 2009
The Phish Heads will be bouncin' round the room all weekend in Hampton.
The roar — and concurrent cloud of smoke — is about to erupt as Phish takes the stage in Hampton, Va., for its first concert in nearly five years.
Among the diehards who have made it into the Hampton Coliseum are Neil Albert, host of the Monday night Phish show on Jackson Hole Community Radio, and former News&Guide sports editor Michael Pearlman, who is front and center on the floor.
The first song to be played has been the subject of much speculation for weeks, as this blog by Mr. Miner attests. I like his thinking with “Mike’s Song,” but the more likely opener is “The Curtain,” raising up where Phish closed down its Coventry farewell festival in August 2004.
Yet if there is one thing we have come to expect from Phish, it’s a surprise.
Jubilation during "Sample in a Jar," Nassau Coliseum, 2003.
When the band came spiraling out of Vermont in the late 1980s and early ’90s, fans used to scribble the set lists in pocket notebooks. Tonight the Phish Heads will be furiously Twittering about “Tweezer;” click here to follow the updates.
As Jon Pareles of the Times noted, the band’s timing is impeccable, with the economy cratering and music fans thirsting for an escape. Guitarist Trey Anastasio says the group is aiming to make phase 2 of its career sustainable and hearkening back to the technical jams of the mid-’90s.
Will it feel the same? Better? Maybe so … maybe not.
Tonight, once again, we shower ourselves in lightness. Here’s hoping the “Weekapaugh Groove” comes West soon!
Posted under Music
… and the opener is: “Fluffhead.”
Never in the band’s history has this line been more appropriate:
“Fluff went to a banker, askin’ for some bills / The banker said, I ain’t got that, but I sure got some powerful pills!”
Next monday night from 7 – 9 The Phish Show on 89.1 KHOL will be highlighting the Hampton shows. I’ll be filling in till Neil lands around 7:30, so expect reviews straight from him by 8 (depending on traffic from the airport!)
geeking out on twitter setlist updates right now…
Don’t know yet whether it was any good or not, but with a first set of just under two hours (16 songs)they obviously weren’t dying to get offstage. Pictures coming in from the concert show an amazing light show.
I’m having trouble waiting, but I want to be surprised when I first listen to it..
http://phishthoughts.com/nospoilers/
Pearlman wrote in halfway through a colossal first set, “They’re back and better.”
Then he added, as the set seemed like it would go on all night, “Old Phish is back with a vengeance. Two hour first set. Old songs played as if Trey has something to prove.”
OK, “nospoilers” read no further.
Here’s the set list, gathered from the band’s Twitter posts:
I: Fluffhead, Divided Sky, Chalkdust Torture, Sample in a Jar, Stash, I Didn’t Know (I Was That Far Gone), Oh Kee Pah > Suzy Greenberg, Farmhouse, NICU, Horn, Rift, Train Song, Water in the Sky, Squirming Coil, David Bowie
II: Backwards Down the Number Line, Tweezer, Taste, Possum, Theme From the Bottom, First Tube, Harry Hood, Waste, You Enjoy Myself
E: Grind, Bouncing Around the Room, Loving Cup
For the first show in 4.5 years, this was every Phish fan’s dream. From midway through the Fluffhead, it was clear that the band had been rehearsing and were eager to cast aside criticism that they were no longer able to execute their structured and composed older material.
The second set opener was a new song that’s been played by the Trey Anastasio Band that seems tailor made for Phish. A sample of the lyrics:
Laughing all these many years
We’ve pushed through hardships tasted tears
We made a promise one to keep
I can still recite it in my sleep
Every time a birthday comes
Call your friend and sing a song
Or whisper it in to his ears
Or write it down just don’t miss a year
You decide what it contains
How long it goes
But this remains
The only rule is it begins
Happy happy oh my friend
This was the show the fanbase had been hoping for, and whatever they play the next two nights will no doubt whet the appetite of their fans for Phish version 3.0.
Damn wish I could have made it going to Burgettstown through East Troy. They sure did lay it down.
SnowKing would be a good venue.